Police shoot domestic violence suspect in Annandale

A domestic violence situation in Annandale ended with a non-fatal police-involved shooting.

A woman called 911 before 9 a.m. on July 28 to say there was an altercation with her husband in their home on the 7000 block of Sutter Lane, behind the Heritage Shopping Center. He was stabbing himself with a knife and was threatening to harm her, Fairfax County Police Chief Kevin Davis reported at a briefing on the scene.  

As the police arrived, they encountered the suspect running away. “Police officers searched for a good 15 minutes before they located the suspect in a wooded area. We took our time, and we got a K9 to respond to the scene and established a perimeter,” Davis said. “We believe he was armed with two knives.”  

As one of the officers, a second lieutenant with 13 years of experience, was looking for the suspect, he said, “the suspect abruptly emerged from a bush where he had secreted himself and with his right hand, grabbed, in a full-on grab, the firearm that the police officer had at his side.”

“The officer, obviously startled, discharged his firearm three times,” Davis said. One of those rounds grazed the suspect’s upper right shoulder. The bullet didn’t enter his body. The officer never relinquished his gun, although it took two hands to wrest it away from the suspect.

At the same time, another police officer who was searching for the suspect discharged his taser.

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The suspect was taken into custody. “He will face several charges, including felony assault against a police officer and attempting to disarm a police officer of a firearm. We will look to see if he committed any crimes at home with his wife,” Davis said.

There were no kids in the home, he noted. The couple’s child is out of the area.

The suspect was taken to a hospital where his wounds were stitched up. He also had self-inflicted superficial puncture wounds in his leg and thigh likely caused by the same knives he used to threaten his wife.

After the incident, the Police Department’s Real Time Crime Center accessed footage from some of the 30 outdoor cameras nearby registered with the Connect Fairfax County program. The footage showed the suspect discard two knives while he was fleeing from the police. The knives have since been recovered.

According to Davis, the suspect has a “significant domestic violence past in his relationship with his wife. He is known to the criminal justice system.”

The FCPD’s Victim Services unit will assist the victim, providing resources and possibly relocating her to a safe space.

When it comes to domestic violence, “there should be no repeat offenders,” Davis said. There are, however, because “sometimes victims are scared, intimidated, threatened, and recant, or pull back their testimony,” and that is frustrating to the criminal justice system.